2025 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa
pashnit
Donating Member
Cool view! It was cold. I had to get off the bike. And yes, you can part right in the middle of the road if you want. There's nobody out here.
Owens Lake - which resembles a dead salt lake - this lake was famous for being drained of water which was siphoned into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Yup, majority of the water for greater Los Angeles comes from that range over there.
Owens Lake - which resembles a dead salt lake - this lake was famous for being drained of water which was siphoned into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Yup, majority of the water for greater Los Angeles comes from that range over there.
pashnit
Donating Member
In the lake, is this unusual art installation built a few years ago - no signs anywhere.
Not even sure how you would know this was here. Soon as I found out about this I had to go check it out.
I stopped here one year ago on my ride through this area.
Owens lake was once 30 feet deep & covered 108 square miles until water flow into the lake was diverted in the early 1900s to provide water for the rapidly growing city of Los Angeles. The lake dried out and produced toxic dust storms for decades as winds picked up the dust and spread it across the United States. Court cases spanned decades to put water back in the lake bed, if anything, to control the creation of toxic dust.
The simple solution was the creation of dikes & berms along with a massive irrigation system. The dry lake bed was broken up into shallow ponds where water is rotated from one pond to the next allowing the soil to stay damp thereby mitigating the dust storms. In the middle of all this litigation, someone came up with the idea to build a land art installation in the middle of a dead lake.
Known as Plover Wing Plaza on the edge of Owens Lake, this place is not easy to find, there are zero signs, none. No mention this place exists anywhere. Plus, why you would ever want to come here, I'm not sure. It's in the middle of nowhere.
Not even sure how you would know this was here. Soon as I found out about this I had to go check it out.
I stopped here one year ago on my ride through this area.
Owens lake was once 30 feet deep & covered 108 square miles until water flow into the lake was diverted in the early 1900s to provide water for the rapidly growing city of Los Angeles. The lake dried out and produced toxic dust storms for decades as winds picked up the dust and spread it across the United States. Court cases spanned decades to put water back in the lake bed, if anything, to control the creation of toxic dust.
The simple solution was the creation of dikes & berms along with a massive irrigation system. The dry lake bed was broken up into shallow ponds where water is rotated from one pond to the next allowing the soil to stay damp thereby mitigating the dust storms. In the middle of all this litigation, someone came up with the idea to build a land art installation in the middle of a dead lake.
Known as Plover Wing Plaza on the edge of Owens Lake, this place is not easy to find, there are zero signs, none. No mention this place exists anywhere. Plus, why you would ever want to come here, I'm not sure. It's in the middle of nowhere.
pashnit
Donating Member
But on this day, I skipped the dikes and berms built into the lake bed and headed for the dying town of Keeler on the shores of Owns Lake.
This is a company mining town built in the 1880s, hauling out the silver ore from the nearby Cerro Gordo mine. By the 1950s, the silver had panned out and the train into town pulled out in the 1960s. The train station is still there on Railroad Avenue, but crumbling. Population 71 and slowly dropping.
What's left of the train station in Keeler. 1960s was the last time it was used.
This is a company mining town built in the 1880s, hauling out the silver ore from the nearby Cerro Gordo mine. By the 1950s, the silver had panned out and the train into town pulled out in the 1960s. The train station is still there on Railroad Avenue, but crumbling. Population 71 and slowly dropping.
What's left of the train station in Keeler. 1960s was the last time it was used.
pashnit
Donating Member
The one room school house in Keeler - doesn't look like it's been used in decades.
Not my first choice as a place to settle, but this is the view from Keeler
And yes, that's a road. And yes, we're going to ride that in September on our Southern Sierra Motorcycle Tour.
Southern Sierra Motorcycle Tour | Pashnit Tours
Ride the Southern Sierra Nevada motorcycle roads
www.pashnittours.com
pashnit
Donating Member
But Keeler wasn't my destination for this ride, I wanted to check out another spot 60 miles north.
See those white thingys... These are found at Big Pine, CA. The mountain range at right is the White Mountains. On the top of the mountain at 10,000 feet are the oldest trees on earth.
www.pashnit.com
I'm authorized.
See those white thingys... These are found at Big Pine, CA. The mountain range at right is the White Mountains. On the top of the mountain at 10,000 feet are the oldest trees on earth.
White Mountain Rd - Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest | CA Motorcycle Roads
Ride Inyo Count Motorcycle Roads, White Mountain Range
www.pashnit.com
I'm authorized.
pashnit
Donating Member
The dish is 130 feet across and was built in the late 1960s. Plans were to build 8 of these, but the other 7 were never built. The funding from the National Science Foundation instead went to build the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico instead. Just one of these telescopes weighs 1 million pounds. The two counterweights below the dish weigh 29,000 pounds each.
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